The Big Meow

They walked down Hollywood Boulevard, past the frontage of the hotel. It was a pleasant stroll in the sunshine, and amusing enough because of the ehhif they passed, who looked with utter fascination, sometimes with laughter, at the procession: the little man in dapper gray with a white cat riding on his shoulder, surrounded by a bodyguard of four more – the gray tabby in the lead, two black cats and a small white calico-patched tom strolling on either side of him, and another calico-patched white bringing up the rear. Cars on the Boulevard, having been sitting still for the better part of fifteen minutes, now actually slowed down again to watch them all pass by. Rhiow flirted her tail in wry comment as they made their way along the Hollywood Hotel’s palm-lined front terraces. To Arhu she said, Now tell me: what did you find up by Laurel and Highland Trail that left you so on edge?

The gate’s sunk a root there, all right, Arhu said, silent. But not deep: not yet. He sounded unusually grim.

Then what’s the trouble?

Someone died there, Rhi. An ehhif. Not long ago.

Siffha’h came up alongside her twin and put her tail over his back as they walked. The gate-root was tunneling straight down into where that life spilled, she said, sure as a seedling drilling down for water.

Spilled? Rhiow said. Actual bloodshed?

Siffha’h wrinkled her nose in disgust and distress. No question. A Person with no nose could have smelled it.

And a Person with the Eye, Arhu said, could see it.

That explained Arhu’s grimness well enough. Nearly murdered with his littermates when hardly more than a few weeks old, Arhu’s relationship with death was a thorny one, and probably would be for some lives yet: that kind of trauma could take a good while to move through. And —

Laurel, Rhiow said. She said “Laurel” —

Arhu looked at her, both angry and confused. No, he said. No matter what she says, I’m not sure the Lady in Black is really dead. And anyway, she’s not the one I saw killed.

Rhiow stared at him. Are you sure?

The Eye doesn’t lie: not when it’s looking back. Forward’s another story. The dead ehhif up on Laurel was a tom… But he still looked confused. Trouble is, Rhi…what we all saw, just now, still smells to me of that death up the hill.

They all walked on to the next intersection, where the sidewalk bent around a gardeny area marking the end of the hotel’s property. I could make the predictable joke about tongues, said the Silent Man, glancing down Orchid Street to see if any traffic was coming. But you’d probably thank me not to. What did Patches here find?

“We think,” Rhiow said, “perhaps a murder.”

Is that so.

Rhiow looked up in surprise at the sudden intense interest in the Silent Man’s voice. His eyes were on her, and they were suddenly much more alert than they had been.

“It’s early to tell, yet,” Urruah said from where he’d fallen in beside Rhiow. “Always a mistake to start theorizing before you’ve finished examining the evidence carefully….”

The Silent Man smiled. Another student of the Master, he said. Well, this makes the spot we’re about to visit a little more interesting.

“Why?” Rhiow said.

But the Silent Man just shook his head as they crossed Orchid. Rhiow wasn’t given much time to press the issue, for as they came up onto the curb of the far corner, Urruah stood stock still for a moment at something he saw…then broke into a run. Tourists and business people and casual strollers on that sidewalk looked with surprise or amusement at the big gray tabby that ran helter-skelter down among them, stopping in front of what seemed from this end of the street to be some kind of big empty plaza. Urruah stood staring into that space as intently as if it were some kind of delicatessen.

The Silent Man glanced down at Rhiow, a wry look. Tell me he’s a film fan, he said, in the tone of an ehhif now prepared to believe just about anything.

“There are a fair number of us,” Hwaith said. “More than you might suspect…”

The Silent Man reached up to rub Sheba behind the ears as they walked after Urruah. Now why in the world would you be interested in the movies?

“Because we appreciate a good story as much as you do,” Hwaith said. “Even when it’s full of all that boring human stuff.”

The Silent Man looked just briefly nonplussed. And the glance Hwaith threw Rhiow then was so wicked that, despite her concerned mood, she still had to stifle a laugh. She was still working at retaining her composure by the time they all caught up with Urruah, or rather, with the spot where he had been standing.